Problems with Patents
The internet has really exposed some flaws in the patent system (and has just generally overloaded it). The theory behind patents (and intellectual property generally) is pretty sound: Offer the inventors of technology a window of exclusivity so that they are propertly incented to innovate. If no such protection is offered, an inventor will incur all the R&D costs associated with the creation of something new, only to see it copied within months or years by a firm that didn’t have to make such an investment. The new firm has lower fixed costs and puts the innovator out of business. This discourages invention that that is bad.
As is often the case, a well-intentioned (and mostly functional) idea can be perverted, and sadly we’re seeing a lot of that with regard to internet companies and technologies. Whether it’s the result of a genuine paradigm shift in the cost of R&D associated with the decreasing development cost of software or whether it’s simply that the staff at the Patent and Trademark Office doesn’t totally understand the nature of interaction on the internet, there are plenty of examples of patents being granted for “technologies” or processes that don’t appear to be nearly novel enough (or difficult enough) to merit protection as described above.
A story on today’s TechDirt reminded me yet again of this problem. Apparently some shady company in Texas is claiming to have “invented the MP3 player”, and is suing Apple, Sandisk, Samsung and anyone else who makes such players. Mp3 is an audio codec designed to produce compressed files for playback. Even if this “company” (apparently no one has heard of it and its offices are a law office) actually did build the first MP3 player, should this be patentable? If there are book publishers out there publishing and binding books, should I really be able to patent a bookshelf? At some level, isn’t a use obvious enough that the PTO can lay off granting patents about it?
There are people working on solutions to this problem, and none too soon. The patent system was designed to protect innovation, not stifle it.
